


You're My Best Friend

by sam_writes_fics



Series: The Five Women in Toby Ziegler's Life [1]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: Best Friends, F/M, First Meetings, Headcanon, young toby ziegler
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29004348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sam_writes_fics/pseuds/sam_writes_fics
Summary: When Toby met CJ, a long time ago.This story follows a young Toby Ziegler as he embarks on a cross country road trip to California, where he inevitably meets his new best friend, Claudia Jean Cregg.Title inspired by the song You're My Best Friend by Queen.
Relationships: C. J. Cregg/Toby Ziegler
Series: The Five Women in Toby Ziegler's Life [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2127768
Comments: 5
Kudos: 4





	1. California Bound

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first part of a five part series I'm doing on how Toby met the five most important women in his life. Stay tuned for the rest of this story & four more after that. Hope you enjoy!

The first time Toby met CJ, he still had all his hair. He was a young twenty-one-year-old kid from Brooklyn, with a head full of dark tight curls. He hadn’t quite started growing his beard at that age, but his gruff exterior was already well developed. He had on jeans and a plain black and white baseball t-shirt, with old worn in black boots.

Toby was sitting in the back seat of an old VW bus next to his seventeen-year-old brother, David. In the front seats were his twin older sisters, Sarah and Talia. They were spending the summer driving across the country to show David some college campuses. Or at least that’s what they had told their mother.

Sarah and Talia were med school students who worked as research assistants to pay their way through school. They were incredibly bright, and already had widely known reputations in the medical community at their age. Although they were a good few years older than Toby, they were both still young spirits at heart. They were in medical school because they wanted to change the world, but that was still a long way away. Sarah and Talia both only had one more year of school left, but then they would spend the next five years in residency, working crazy hours and trying to figure it all out. The two girls made a pact to spend their last summer before the real world a memorable one, and that meant doing the one thing they loved.

Fighting the man.

The girls spent their youth attending protests and rallies all over the state of New York. They fought for love, they fought for peace, they fought for anything and everything their youthful minds thought was right. It was their way of making even the smallest difference in the world while they were still too young to do anything more than paint signs and scream in the streets.

Once Toby was in high school, the girls started to introduce him to the fight. Toby wasn’t the typical fighter; he didn’t like throwing his fists in the air or yelling at the street cops. That said, he still supported most of the issues his sisters would be fighting for. He would go with them to rallies, and he’d listen to all of the important people speak. He’d make mental notes of points on both sides, and then when he’d go home, he’d do his own research to figure out who was making sense and who was full of shit.

Toby found that the Man was often full of shit, and usually that man was a Republican.

The rallies were where Toby first learned about the power of words. He learned that it didn’t matter if it was him against another, or him against a hundred people, as long as he knew more (which he usually did) and he knew how to articulate it (which he got better at as he got older).

Toby and the twins tried to go to as many rallies as they could in New York. Things were getting harder with the girls in medical school and Toby now in college himself. So, when Sarah and Talia suggested the Summer of Resistance Road Trip (Toby had no input on the name, he likes to make that clear to people) Toby was all in. He spent his spring semester working like a dog with his already full class schedule to save up enough money to take off a few weeks that summer. 

Now that David was finally getting older, the trio decided to bring him along on their road trip. They told their mother they were going to visit colleges with David (which she did not believe) and they headed out west. David, the dutiful son that he was, made them promise to visit some colleges along the way.

The Zieglers were in their second month of the road trip, and they had finally made it to sunny California. They were heading to a week-long rally in Berkeley, before spending the next two months traveling all over the western United States. They would end their summer at a rally in Sacramento, and then made the long journey back home to New York.

That all changed when Toby met CJ.


	2. Hold My Jean Jacket

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Ziegler clan arrives in California. Toby shows David his way around a rally, but not without stopping for a fight.

The Ziegler clan was staying at a house that belonged to one of the twins’ friends from undergrad. When they weren’t at the house (which was most of the time) the Zieglers could usually be found in the park a few blocks away. The California rally was filled with feminists from all over the country championing for women’s equal rights. Sarah and Talia were quickly swept away with the masses on day one. Toby stayed with David, showing him the dos and do nots of rallies. David wasn’t as stone faced and quiet as Toby, but he wasn’t as free spirited as the girls either. He was the perfect balance between them. He was incredibly bright for his age, and he had a gift for understanding math and science, much like the twins. Toby never had that spark for chemistry or physics the way his siblings had. His passion came in the form of the written word.

By day three, Toby and David had done enough recon to join in on the fight. They talked with supporters and protestors, listening to what each had to say and occasionally sharing their own opinions. They were getting ready to head back to the house at the end of a long day, when Toby heard something that was too good to pass up.

There was one guy (the human embodiment of the Man, as Toby saw him) who was convincing a group of college aged guys that the protest was pointless. He seemed to be doing a good job at changing their minds, as the guys were putting down their signs and hanging on the Man’s every word. Toby rolled his eyes at the sight.

“Stay right here, and watch this,” Toby said as he took off and handed David his jean jacket. David stood in that one spot, as he watched his brother walk right up to the group. Toby stood listening for a minute or two, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. When he found his way in, he (verbally) attacked.

David watched on as Toby started talking right to the Man, his voice low at first. To onlookers, they seemed to be having a normal conversation. The youngest Ziegler watched on curiously. Toby started talking faster and louder with each passing minute. Every time the Man tried to say something, Toby was there first, not letting the Man get a word in edge wise. Every minute Toby would take a step closer to the Man, who was at least a full foot taller than Toby, and push his sleeves up a little higher as his voice got louder. The young guys surrounding them started to side with Toby, who was clearly getting to the Man without ever laying a finger on him.

David watched as the group around the two men got bigger. Spectators from nearby started hearing Toby and came over to listen. Soon David saw the twins appear across the crowd, beaming with the proudest smiles on their faces as they listened to their brother absolutely demolish the poor shmuck.

After what seemed like forever of Toby telling this guy how wrong he was, the Man finally gave up and hurried off away from the crowd, mumbling something about “kids these days”. Toby turned back to the crowd beside him, and they all broke out into a cheer. He rolled his eyes in response, but the smallest smile crept up on his face.

“Who is _that_ and where has he been all my life?” asked a woman appearing next to David.

“In Brooklyn,” David responded turning towards the woman. She was young, beautiful, and had the brightest gapped tooth smile. “I’m David,” he introduced himself, shaking her hand with a proud look on his face.

“And that’s my brother, Toby.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you guess who the mystery woman is? I bet you can. More to come!


	3. Meet the Zieglers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CJ "meets" the Ziegler clan

Toby pushed his way through the thickening crowd back to where he left David. He almost stopped in his tracks at the sight of the woman next to his brother. She was taller than both Toby and David, and she was beautiful. She looked like a Californian movie star. Toby quickly regained his composer and kept walking towards the pair who were now shaking hands.

“Hey, are you ready to go?” he asked nonchalantly while taking his jacket back.

“Yeah, Toby this is—”

“Hi,” the woman extended her hand to him, “I’m CJ Cregg.” A thousand watt smile creeped over her face, exposing her slightly gapped teeth.

He shook her hand, “I’m Toby.” He gave her a small smile that quickly faded when his sisters came out of the crown and nearly tackled him.

“TO-BY!” they shouted in unison.

“You totally kicked his ass!” Sarah said as she flung her arm around his shoulders.

“That was almost as good as the time in Saratoga,” Talia held up her hand for a high five, which Toby reluctantly gave her.

“He had it coming,” Toby replied as he shrugged his sisters off. “Oh, and this is—”

“ _CJ_!” the twins screamed once again, cutting him off.

CJ’s jaw was basically on the ground at the sight of the girls. She screamed back and they all hugged each other and tried to talk over the others until they were blue in the face.

David looked scared at the Sisterhood gathering that was going on beside him, and Toby almost laughed. He pulled David out of the crossfire and they sat back for a few minutes to wait for the girls to stop screaming.

“Can someone tell me what’s going on here?” David finally asked. He wasn’t quite as patient as his brother.

“How do you know CJ?” Talia asked him.

“We don’t,” Toby responded, “we just met.”

“How do you know CJ?” David asked back.

“We met her in Cleveland two years ago at the wildlife preservation rally,” replied Sarah, “Her family was nice enough to feed us for two days.”

“Wait,” CJ finally jumped in, “how do you guys all know each other?”

Toby actually laughed at that one.

David pointed one finger at Toby, “Older brother,” and another at the twins, “older sisters.”

The lightbulb finally went off in CJ’s head. “Oh my god,” she started, “this guy is your _brother_?” she asked pointing to Toby. Sarah and Talia nodded proudly, as Toby scratched at the back of his head slightly embarrassed.

“Oh, this is gonna be fun,” CJ said with a wicked grin as she grabbed Toby by the wrist and led the whole Ziegler clan away from the crowds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, I know, but I'm still trying to figure out where to take this next. In the meantime, I figured I'd update with what I had so far. As always, comments fuel my ego.


End file.
